


we'll play it by ear

by chambers_none



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, F/M, M/M, Work In Progress, blame this on the video of oscar and daisy singing, i haven't done chemistry in three years don't look at me, lbr poe dameron was the troy bolton of the school, starkiller base and the resistance becomes the most talked about battle of bands
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-05-11 17:13:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5635171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chambers_none/pseuds/chambers_none
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“THE RESISTANCE NEEDS YOU,” is the title, in dramatic block letters. “WE’RE LOOKING FOR GUITARISTS. SIGN UP NOW,” and it’s really too early in the morning for him.</p><p>or the high school band AU no one asked for, featuring poe dameron is a “lead singer of the band” cliche, kylo the self-hating fanboy, terrible star wars references, and other various sorts of drama.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“we need to audition people,” jess tells him first thing monday.

of course, it’s monday, and he doesn’t do very well in the mornings to begin with, so he stares blankly up at her, then back down to where she’s slapped a notebook in front of him. “THE RESISTANCE NEEDS YOU,” is the title, in dramatic block letters. “WE’RE LOOKING FOR GUITARISTS. SIGN UP NOW,” and it’s really too early in the morning for him.

poe’s still bleary-eyed, and they’ve known each other for ages now, so jess deciphers his mumbles as agreement easily. “thanks, cap,” she pats him on the head, and out of nowhere- or maybe she was just holding it behind her back and he couldn’t stay awake enough to pay attention- proffers caffeine. the good kind, too, from solo’s twenty minutes from their school. “knew withholding the coffee was a good idea,” she muses to herself, but now poe’s slightly conscious enough to shoot a glare.

“there, there,” she soothes. “now, i was thinking, instead of ‘sign up now’, how about ‘enlist now’, because you know, we gotta keep in with the theme-”

-

unsurprisingly, the flyers don’t take too long to spread. they’ve only made about thirty, really, but the resistance’s always been popular in their dinky little town, and as jess loves to pride herself on, are really eye-catching. 

unfortunately, this means half the school population turns up to his garage on saturday.

poe’s relatively aware, of course, of their reputation. their trio is more or less friendly with everyone in school, and for some reason, he especially is beloved by all eight hundred delinquents that republic high has to offer. but he’d never thought the turnout would be this big; there’s got to be a queue leading out of his yard and into- well, to snap’s at least, which is three blocks away. he has both a good and bad feeling about this: he’s optimistic they’ll find somebody, but the crowd gives him a sinking feeling that it’ll take ages.

it does take ages.

they go through thirty people before lunch, then snap calls for break time. poe, relieved to be free from the multiple prying gazes, closes the garage door to the chorus of “aw”s. the band huddles around indian takeaway and stare at each other morosely in turn until jess throws a piece of chicken at his head.

“this is ridiculous.”

“it was your idea-”

“yeah, to have guitarists sign up! why the fuck are there accordion players, that makes no fucking sense,” to which snap interrupts, “they have potential, you know? they could help. we can’t say for sure that a guitarist is all we need, what if another singer comes along and it really carries us all the way out of this bleedin’ place.”

“that’s the point, snap, we’ve gone through, like, five singers, and only two could actually sing.”

“hey, i couldn’t really play the drums till i met you guys.”

“we were freshmen then! look, jess, tell him-”

jess rolls her shoulder back, then plonks herself across his lap, pensive. he doesn’t know how she manages to look so introspective when you’re looking right up at suspicious stains on the ceiling, but she does. “he’s kinda right, though. we put him through the paces just so we could have a band. he happened to be a quick learner. maybe we need someone with raw talent, and we’ll like, i dunno, fucking mentor them or something.”

poe groans. “we’re not actually music producers, jess. how the fuck are we supposed to recognize raw talent if they can’t even bloody play an instrument?”

jess makes a half-hearted sound, shrugging, and sits right up to stare him dead in the eye. “look, don’t worry, boss. we’ll know it when we see it. or hear it. whatever.

and you really should clean the ceiling, by the way. is that oil or mustard?”

-  


rey doesn’t know why she’s here, what she’s looking for, really.

it’d been wednesday when finn had rushed up to her, big grin and knees knocking into each other, waving a crumpled something. it wasn’t a familiar look on him, and she’d been left slightly uneasy until she figured out when exactly it had last been worn on his face.

“look!” 

she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to focus on- the awful font used (in what looked like size 72, no less) or the tacky powerpoint graphics. she scans through it briefly, “they should hire a designer, you know. if they wanted to be taken seriously.”

finn blows a raspberry, then, and shudders exasperatedly. he bangs into the locker next to hers when he does, then for effect, drums his fingers on it in a feverish beat. “that’s _not_ the point, rey,” he emphasises the word, because her act isn’t fooling him. he’ll never forget walking into her bedroom half an hour early when her foster mum had let him in, and he had found her playing the guitar like the next kurt cobain. or something. he wasn’t actually that knowledgeable when it came to music, but he knew when something sounded good. and rey? sounded too damn good. this wasn’t an opportunity she could pass up; it wasn’t an opportunity he’d let her pass up.

(the fact that poe dameron was in the band had been a bonus. really.)

“the point is, you’re a really good player! guitar person! guitarist thing! and you can sing- trust me, you should be famous already. you can’t not try out,” he looks at her, and sees the same hesitance. always that hesitance when it came to new things, and while it wasn’t as bad as it had been when she joined the school a semester ago, he still wonders why. 

“promise me you’ll try this. promise me,” he breathes out, and it’s shaky and he feels nervous, like if she fails to then something really important won’t happen.

rey nods at him, unhappily. her mouth is in a twist and she squints at him for a half-second, then brushes aside the topic- the flyer she tucks in the back pocket of her jeans. even so, nattering on about their geography essay due noon is something she easily does while she mentally runs through music sheets and song choices.

(the look on his face had been scheming. he'd worn it last when kylo had refused to do his share of pair work, and rey had watched as he mixed itching powder into kylo's lab- the sodium chloride had covered everything it up nicely. kylo had itched for a week till rashes sprouted, and it'd been nearly a month since that, and he _still_ hadn't figured out who did it.) 

it’d been thursday when she thought she’d found something.

it’d been friday when she thought she’d got the song down, with finn begging to hear a rendition. “i don’t even need to hear to know you’re good,” and he’d given her the patent puppy dog eyes, “but i want to hear it anyway!”

“no,” she tells him, short and sharp. “if i get in, i promise i’ll play it for you. if not, i won’t.”

he doesn’t argue.

it’s saturday morning now, and rey’s still staring at the dirty blue of the garage door when it opens. the crowd around her hushes dramatically- honestly, why was there a crowd in the first place? this was just an audition- and the band pops out. she had researched them, of course, watching some shit quality youtube videos and going through their bandcamp. this was jessica, she knew- the two flanking her were poe, and temmin, better known as snap. they were an odd medley, and she had the faint suspicion that they were strikingly popular in this small town regardless, but other than that she had no idea what she was in for.

well, that was finn in her head.

for the briefest moment she wishes he were here with her, but rey shrugs it off. she’s used to doing things alone, what with her parents leaving and the foster system too overworked to really focus on individual children. 

“next,” jess calls, snapping her out of it.

she looks at the keyboardist straight in the eye, and strides over to the garage: poe and snap step back, surprised by her vehemence. “my name’s rey,” she tells them, “and i’ll be playing porcelain bosnia.”

“what,” snap says.

the garage door clangs when it closes.

“explain,” jess demands.

rey takes a deep breath. she can do this. finn said so. “i checked out the songs you guys have, and the covers that you’ve done. so i decided to do a mash up of porcelain, by rhcp, and bosnia, by the cranberries.” she stares at their blank expressions, chin lifting slightly. “seems like the two genres you guys draw from, the two major vibes i thought i’d work with."

“we just put up the flyers tuesday,” she hears poe say faintly.

she shrugs. “do you want to hear it or not?”

there are hasty nods, so she settles the guitar on her hip and breathes in deeply. 

the chords come to her easily, they always have. she sings and sings and strums and thinks absently that her fingers should hurt more, but they don’t, and it washes her in a wave of calm. music, cliche as it was, had saved her. it was the one constant. there was probably nothing scarier than counting on something so intangible, but at the same time it had always filled her with a surety she’d never known before. distantly she catches herself sing, “ _bosnia was so unkind- are you wasting away?_ ” muscle memory stops her, at some point, she doesn’t know what, and she finally looks up to face the band members.

jess is the only one not gaping, though she’s not far from it. poe- poe looks completely gobsmacked, and snap is frowning so hard rey thinks she must have personally offended him. maybe she bastardized the song. maybe he had relatives in bosnia. maybe-

“what the fuck,” poe says, and jess and snap echo him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rey here's written a little differently- i understand that my characterization of her is more unusual, but i really wanted to capitalize on how she's been alone her whole life, and how that might translate more subtly (since, after all, we don't really hear her inner thoughts) especially in a contemporary kind of setting.

rey feels herself tense and hunch in, but already a fury is building in her. her cover was damn good, she knows this, what are they talking about-

poe drops to his knees. his eyes are manic when he clasps his hands together, “join us. please. i’m begging you.”

oh.

the fury turns into shy pride, and a blush is warming her cheeks, and she tries to fight off a smile. she got in. she got in? she got in, and she can’t wait to tell finn.

“you’re- you’re a fucking dream,” jess tells her, looking dazed, “where have you been hiding all this while?”

“i- i just moved here last semester.”

she stares at rey, insulted. “that’s no excuse- we could’ve- skipped _all those people_ , oh my god-”

“what people?”

snap mutters darkly, “you don’t wanna know.”

poe claps her on the shoulder just then, a grin on his face. “welcome kid, you’re officially a member of the resistance.”

-

it takes half an hour for them to clear the crowd still waiting for their turn behind rey, but for some reason the resistance is adamant. jess has a fire in her eyes that rey doesn’t dare come near, and poe looks meek throughout, but eventually, what seems like the entire population of their town clears and the band- _her band,/i >, her mind supplies- sags against the garage door, relief in their faces._

_she thinks of saying something about the near-rudeness that jess had displayed shooing everyone away when snap turns on her, “no, you really don’t wanna know.”_

_-_

_the garage, where they finally retreat to, is cool, if dusty. the heat that’s been sticking to their skin the entire morning and part of the afternoon would be an irritation to everyone but rey- she’s had summers in the death valley, so really, nothing can faze her. regardless, it’s welcoming: the space is draped in shadows, but it’s still lit enough that she won’t trip over cables, or something. it’s not even that well-furnished, let alone decorated, but there’s a sense of comfort that settles in her bones. she thinks this is what you might call home._

_“so,” snap claps his hands together, loudly, to draw attention, “we should start on what kind of music you’ve been playing all this while. tell us about yourself, rey,” and there’s nothing to it, really, but she feels herself flush all the same._

_all this time she’s been so eager, and yearning for people to care about her and really look at her, and now she can’t do it. her throat feels dry; her tongue is stuck to the roof of her mouth._

_“uh- i. just do some covers, really.” _and sometimes i write my own songs, but they’re nothing_ , she thinks silently._


End file.
